


Affinity for You

by Darkravenwrote



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, Magic, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash, Yuletide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:20:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28275210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkravenwrote/pseuds/Darkravenwrote
Summary: At the edge of the village, in the shadow of the haunted forest, there lives a witch.And if everyone else is too scared and prejudiced to invite him to the Yuletide celebration, then Harry will bloody well do it himself.Written for HDOwlpost 2020
Relationships: Draco Malfoy/Harry Potter
Comments: 5
Kudos: 53
Collections: Harry/Draco Owlpost 2020





	Affinity for You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nearlyconscious](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nearlyconscious/gifts).



> Not what I was imagining when I started this, but still had fun writing it. Merry Christmas everyone!

The village comes into view as Harry crests the last hill of his journey. It's barely past noon, but the skies are so grey and the world so dim it might as well be nearing dark. The settlement is a beacon of hundreds of flickering candles and the shimmer of weak silver sunlight off the lake on the south side.

Harry is tired. He's been away for several weeks and he can't wait for a hearty meal and his own bed. He loves his job, the adventure and discovery of it, but sleeping on rough ground and scavenging for his food after his supplies run out can get old very quickly when winter's fast approaching and the rain is his only constant companion.

It started sleeting this morning too, which is worse as his shielding affinity doesn't work as well against it as with entirely liquid water. His affinity energy reserves are depleted too from near constant recent use. So while he's not soaked, his hair is damp and his clothes are cold and wet enough to be uncomfortable.

His cloak chafes at his throat as he starts down the hill towards home. The heavy weight of his full pack doesn't help.

Despite his dreams of his own bed and the comfort and smells of his own little home, Harry veers south towards the lake. Hermione's cottage is a reasonable distance from the water. Close enough that she frets about flooding every rainy season, but far enough that it's never actually happened.

"Harry! You're back!" She greets him at the door. It warms his heart to know she's been watching for him even though he wasn't expected. "We didn't expect you for another week at least." She means herself and Ron, although at this time of day Ron won't be here.

Harry had hoped to make a trip out to the marshlands -- a week detour on his way home -- but a landslide had cut off the pass and he hadn't wanted to risk the winter snows coming early and leaving him stranded if he went the long way round.

"This Dewclaw was feeling particularly docile," he tells her instead, knowing she'd rather hear of his adventures. She ushers him towards her roaring fireplace as he speaks and before he knows it his pack is resting gently by the door and a warm bowl of root vegetable stew is cradled in his palms. "Do we know anything about southern dragons possibly hibernating? He barely flinched while I was trampling all over the place collecting his shed scales."

Hermione's eyes glint with the excitement of a fresh project. "I'll have to do some research." She snatches his wet cloak from his shoulders and sets it to dry hanging on a spare chair, then returns to whatever she's doing at her table with a heap of jumbled plants. It's always struck Harry how domestic her affinity is and yet how little it suits her. He watches her fingers brush against her bowl of water each time she adds a petal or clipping, and a fresh waft of steam and scent release upwards.

'It's because she's charming,' Ron used to joke, jamming his elbow into Harry's ribs, when they were younger and his crush for her knew no bounds. When Harry stared at him helplessly the first time, he'd rolled his eyes and continued, 'Her affinity is charms. Mum says it's like encouraging things to change to the states you want them to be. Colder, hotter, heavier, that sort of thing. Used to be a lot of potioneers good at it back in the day.'

Harry's glad his affinity is simpler. He never had to wonder why he could do so many random things like Hermione when he was a child coming into his inheritance. Shielding. Defence. Simple. In theory at least.

Harry spends the next hour with her pleasantly. It goes by quickly. She catches him up on the village gossip: so-and-so's father has fallen ill; little such-and-such got into trouble making mischief; and so on. It's mundane in a comfortable way.

Before he knows it his clothes are dry, his belly is satisfyingly full and he realises he has things he'd like to get started on before the light fades.

Hermione startles when he stands. "Where are you going so soon?" 

Harry purposefully keeps his jaw loose and his body languid and casual, but the argument that's coming is inevitable.

"I grabbed some ember dittany on my way down the mountain," he says, shrugging nonchalantly. "It needs to be dried and used in potions as soon as possible."

The fire flickers ominously even though it's not something Hermione has any control over. Not at that distance anyway. The tight set of her crossed arms and pursed lips display her feelings vividly enough though.

"You're going up to see Malfoy again, aren't you?" She shakes her head, disappointed, and Harry feels his annoyance flaring already. It's always the same argument, again and again. "I wish you'd sell to normal merchants like Neville does."

It takes a mammoth effort not to roll his eyes. "Neville doesn't go traipsing around the country searching for the rarest of the rare." To be fair to Neville, his gardens cater for the entire village's herb stores and make enough extra to sell on the side. But that's not what this is about. "If I'm selling mermaid eyelashes, I want it to be to someone who'll make use of it well and not some peddler who'll shift it on for an extortionate profit."

He sees the distrust in her eyes and knows she thinks Malfoy is no better. But Harry knows different. Because he's actually met Malfoy, which is more than he can say for most of the village. People see him as this sinister spectre on their periphery. To be feared and only approached when strictly necessary.

"But Malfoy?" Her worry for him is earnest, but Harry wishes she'd meet Malfoy and watch him work before she judges him so harshly.

"What's wrong with Malfoy?" He shrugs on his cloak a little forcefully and shoulders his pack, ready for this conversation to be over. "He can be a bit...blunt sometimes, but he always offers me a fair price and you know damn well half the potions he makes get used in this village no matter how much people want to sweep it under the rug." That's true. Given that everyone is terrified of him, it usually falls to Harry to take special orders for potions or wishes up when he goes to barter. It's laughable how little they trust him and yet place their lives in his hands so easily.

"He's a witch, Harry," Hermione whispers finally, harsh but hushed like someone could be listening. Like the word itself is cursed.

Harry sighs. "So is Ron," he says evenly, meeting her eyes evenly.

Hermione tuts at him across the room. ‘You know that's different,’ her frustrated, wet eyes say silently. "Ron's family were actively hunted for hiding people during the war and they barely use magic." They don’t stir the pot. Her voice lowers to a hiss. "The Malfoy's were one of the biggest names back then, and not in a good way." There are rumours that say it was a Malfoy ancestor who murdered the then-king rather than the Dark Lord doing it directly. Mercifully, Hermione doesn’t say this aloud. Admittedly, it doesn't leave the family name with a very good mark. But barely any witches can claim one of those anyway.

She steps up to him, her hands gentle as she clasps his shoulders. "And Malfoy flaunts himself wherever he goes." That's unfair considering Malfoy barely goes  _ anywhere _ . True, he does like to dress himself nicely --  _ with magic _ , Harry's mind whispers to him with a thrill -- but setting foot in the village perhaps once a year for an emergency could hardly be considered flaunting himself.

"Don't you think it's unfair for people to be persecuted for things their ancestors did generations ago? Sometimes if you treat people like they're evil for long enough, they start to believe it too."

Harry shakes his head when she opens her mouth to reply. That's enough for today.

He pecks her once on each cheek, smiles carefully to let her know he's not really mad, and backs out of the door into the cold.

Across the lake from Hermione’s cosy little home sits an intimidatingly long, steep hill. Climbing it in summer is a fairly pleasant excursion. But in winter with the mud and ice, it's an obnoxiously arduous task.

A little over the crest of the hill, a cursed forest sprawls. The bare tops of its limbs are tall enough to peek down at the village all year and every full moon the werewolves howl their displeasure.

Malfoy's hut squats on the border, half in shadow. One day the field was empty and the next the shabby little building existed. People were immediately suspicious when smoke began rising at the edge of the forest. They learned someone had settled there and as a unit began harbouring dislike for this mysterious entity, seemingly unaffected or unbothered by the dark twisted magic scratching at his back door.

To learn it was a witch was another black mark. To discover his identity was the final nail in the coffin.

That didn't stop a sleep-deprived, panicking not-quite-father from running to Malfoy when all else failed his wife during childbirth.

Harry met Malfoy for the first time as he was trudging home from a month away in the valleys, and Malfoy was storming away with blood still fresh on his hands and -- Harry will learn later -- fresh insults at his back despite his help.

Harry almost tripped over his own feet when he saw the sway of his pale hair and the anger in his paler eyes. The flourish of his ridiculously luxurious cape swept against Harry's ankle as they passed, and Harry covered up his actual stumble by rocking to the side as if he'd overbalaced against the heavy weight of his full pack. He wasn’t sure whether that was less embarrassing. From Malfoy's raised eyebrows as he strode past, he wasn’t sure either.

Harry thought that would be the end of it, but several minutes later as Harry crossed the village square to fill his canteen before heading home for the night, he spotted Malfoy again. He was dawdling along the edge of the buildings, his brow scrunched adorably.

"Can I help?" Harry asked, even though by now he had figured out this must be the witch everyone was gossiping about when he left.

"No, I'm perfectly fine, thank you," Malfoy said with the forced politeness of someone who refuses to ask for help ever.

Harry considered him as he went about his business. By the time he had finished, Malfoy had barely moved. He decided to be the bigger person. Perhaps he could convince Malfoy at least one person in the village wasn’t prejudiced beyond belief.

"The lake's that way." He pointed back over his shoulder.

Malfoy pursed his lips and didn't say thank you, but he nodded as he passed. His long legs ate up the ground easily and Harry thought that really would be that this time.

But Malfoy stopped just as he was about to cross into the shadows between two houses.

"Is that albino peacock feather hanging from your belt?" he threw carelessly back over his shoulder.

"It's my job."

Malfoy didn’t turn to face him as he said, "I'm always open to new chains of supply." Before Harry could blink and process what he was actually suggesting, Malfoy had disappeared.

They exchanged introductions belatedly when Harry ventured up to his hut the next morning, tentative and worried about where this road he was wandering down would take him. Malfoy didn't invite him in, or let him glimpse inside, but he gave him the fairest price Harry's ever had for the three items they traded.

By now, Harry's so used to the journey he barely blinks at all the mud and overgrowth facing him from the bottom of the hill. He knows there's a warm blanket waiting for him even though Malfoy's home is always warm without a fire, and a cat who loves to curl up with him while he waits for Malfoy to inspect his wares.

The first time Harry was granted the honour of an invitation inside, he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. The hut isn't so much a hut as it is a roomy, open-plan barn conversion. The large space of the ground floor is broken up artfully by storage and tables filled to toppling. 

A firepit crackled happily at the centre of the open space and the smoke wafting upwards somehow swirled in a large, looping M shape before reaching its designated hole in the ceiling and escaping. Surrounding it were several plush seating cushions, low to the ground and inviting. A black and white cat peered up at him accusingly from one of them.

The place was awash with the scent of flowers and herbs and crisp books. On the far side, a single ladder led up to a small loft where several blankets flopped through the wooden railings.

Harry is no less impressed when he steps over the threshold this time. Magic. He always has to remind himself. And, as expected, it is beautifully warm inside.

"What do you have for me this time, Potter," Malfoy calls from his place bent over a table, knife in one hand and some bright purple flower in the other.

It used to take a lot of effort for Harry not to feel overwhelmed when he visited Malfoy. Now, he takes the time to appreciate how the cat leans into his touch when he brushes her head, and how some of the pots abandoned by the firepit have giant wooden spoons stirring themselves at different speeds unattended. There's a fruit cake cooling beside the stove, still steaming, and Harry thinks somehow Malfoy knew he was coming.

"Just got back," he says. "Went up into the mountains to visit the dragons for shedding season."

Malfoy's eyes flick up at him, interested. His head bobs towards a side table which is empty save for the trailing ivy plaited and swirled on one end.

Harry empties his pack onto it and settles into the cushions with the cat. A sigh escapes as he's welcomed into the plush heaven.

A piece of cake already waits for him. He swipes it before the cat can touch it.

There's an intimate quiet as Malfoy picks critically and carefully through Harry's wares. He's never snide about anything Harry brings him. Once, some flowers were crushed and Harry could have burned down the house with how hot his face became from embarrassment. But Malfoy simply set them aside and didn't look at them again.

His considering hums and the rustling of him slowly working his way through things is nice background noise. With one hand on the cat's belly -- when did she climb onto his lap? -- and sweetness in his belly, Harry drifts off quickly.

It's pitch black outside when he wakes. That's fine though, the village lights will guide him back and Malfoy's been known to lend him a glowlight to the edge of the village in the past.

"You should head back soon," Malfoy murmurs from where he's reducing some berries down for preservation. "The village will think I've kidnapped you."

Harry scoffs, hauling himself upright and hoping his hair isn't too outrageous. The cat yowls as she scampers away. "What would they do? Come after you?" He chuckles at his own joke, but Malfoy just hunches his shoulders..

It occurs to Harry that Malfoy seems to like these visits. Even though they're mostly silent and Harry often falls asleep from exhaustion, he seems to like the company. He forgets sometimes that Malfoy only has his cat. And his potted tree.

"Well," he continues in a light tone. "If you wanted the villagers to like you, you could always try looking a little less...sinister." He motions to the forest lurking out the back window. Malfoy scowls at him, but there's no heat to it.

"I admire your positive attitude, but nothing I do will change the way they see me."

"Settling at the edge of a haunted forest doesn't give a great first impression."

"I'm a witch, Potter." He cracks the empty berry vines with abrupt, unforgiving twitches of his long fingers. Harry has always liked his hands. "Their impressions of me were set long before I arrived in town."

"I thought everyone with an affinity had some witch blood somewhere in their family?" Malfoy taught him that but a stop at an archive in one of the bigger towns had confirmed the claim. He didn't tell Hermione where he originally got the information from when he told her.

Malfoy sighs, sad and lonely, and glares sharply when Harry's fingers roam too close to any of his work as Harry meanders between the tables towards him. "History is written by victors," he says to his plants. "People like having power, but they don't want to be associated with evil from the past. Besides, it’s more than the magic.”

His name, he means.

Harry taps his nails on the table where Malfoy works, wishing he were brave enough to edge his hand across those last few inches and touch him. "You're not evil."

The candlelight flickers around them. It makes Malfoy's hair glow golden and the coloured stitching in his perfectly pressed tunic glitter. He looks expensive and out of place, like he could be doing so much more than making cough potions for the last village before the end of the world that doesn't even like him.

Harry wishes he knew what to say. He wishes a reassuring touch would be welcome.

"You should get going," Malfoy dismisses him abruptly. So abruptly that Harry suddenly doesn't feel welcome. Like the shadows have deepened and are chasing him out.

Malfoy is cold to him as he hurriedly grabs his things and the payment Malfoy has left by his severely depleted pack. Malfoy doesn't see him off or say goodbye, but a glowlight sparks to life as he steps out into the darkness. And the shield he erects to ward off the rain feels like it's not doing much because another layer is already in place above it.

The snows settle late for a village so far north. Harry manages to squeeze in an extra trip around the surrounding valleys for a week before he joins the other young men for the arduous tasks done when their winter isolation comes each year. 

He hangs the flightless purple twig-hen feathers he found in an abandoned nest upside down in his little shed to dry (hoping the damp hasn’t harmed any of the luxurious tails), sorts through the mass of metals and rocks he stashed in his bag, and sets aside a morning in a few days to trudge up to Malfoy's house with his haul.

In the meantime, he joins the log team and spends the precious daylight hours knee high in snow with an axe in hand. The village needs plenty of wood for fires this season and to replace the wood they'll use for the Yuletide bonfire. The wood for the celebration is handpicked the year before, cured until summer, and then artistically carved and lacquered lovingly during the remaining time. Personally, Harry thinks the lacquers they use have something  _ extra _ in them, because last year he felt suspiciously dopey after only half a glass of wine and the year before half the village fell into a group hysteria claiming they saw a dragon made of granite fly over the full moon.

It’s during this time, while he’s out on his own in the wilderness and only his axe for company, that he decides what he wants to do.

“-and it’s so ridiculous,” Hermione rants later while they’re having lunch together. “Why can’t she just return the courtship now!”

Harry hums understandingly as he polishes off the portion of broccoli soup pie she’d given him. “But you’re sure she’ll return your courtship come midsummer’s eve?” 

“Oh, I'm sure. She's half way in love with me. If I'd known she was going to want to follow all the old courting rituals I'd have waited until the new year at least and avoid all this waiting.”

“It’ll be worth it then.”

“Yes, it will. It’s all this waiting. I can’t stand it. It’s old-fashioned nonsense, is what it is!” she proclaims, swinging her wet spoon to illustrate her point.

Harry hums again, noncommittal. Hermione won’t like what he’s about to say next. But he’s never avoided talking to her about something because they disagree. Otherwise, she’d never know he was trading with Malfoy in the first place.

“I'm thinking of inviting Malfoy as my guest to the celebration,” he says, blasé, as he stares out the window. Like it’s the most casual thing he’s ever said.

“The Yuletide celebration? Malfoy?”

"Why not? He's part of the village too." 

"Harry, I'm not sure that's the best idea. You know how the villagers feel about him." The way she says it makes him feel like she’s more on his side than he previously thought. Like she’s saying,  _ I wish things were different.  _ But sometimes if you want to see change, you have to take the first step yourself.

"None of them have ever met him."

"I didn't say it was logical or fair." Her protectiveness makes his heart clang loudly in his chest. He's away from the village a lot, but if he were outcast for his friendship with Malfoy he'd have to leave. 

"Sounds like old-fashioned nonsense to me." He murmurs it low and quiet, but he knows she hears.

Her eyes look wet in the firelight, but she huffs concedingly. She maybe looks a little proud too. Her hug is unexpected, as is the kiss to his cheek and the warm palm placed over his heart. "Do what you think is right."

Two days later, willfully ignoring Hermione's eyeroll and tutting as he drops off berries for her that he scrounged in the wood that morning, Harry makes the journey up to see Malfoy’s. The pack on his back weighs him down and the bouquet of wild twig-hen feathers makes one of his arms useless for balance.

Miraculously, he doesn't slip as he trudges up the hill, although the freezing wind steals straight through any shields he puts up. His teeth chatter despite his furs and there’s sweat beading on his brow by the time he crests the hill. 

Malfoy's little cottage sits in shadow at the forest edge as usual. The windows flicker with candlelight and smoke wafts gently from the chimney. He still has an hour of daylight left, and if things go the way he worries they will, he’ll be on his arse on the doorstep well before sunset. Diving in head-first feels like the best option. If he hesitates and lets Malfoy set their usual sedate pace, Harry won’t ask. He needs to go in with a brave face on.

He hopes Malfoy is in a good mood.

He should have known better than to hope, though. True to form for the season, Malfoy is in a frosty but strangely accommodating mood. He opens the door almost immediately when Harry knocks with a polite level of force, and glances over Harry's damp clothes and muddy boots with displeasure. But he leaves the door open when he turns back to the bubbling pop over the firepit, so Harry invites himself in. He's pleasantly surprised when his clothes tingle to dryness and his boots stop squelching as he crosses the threshold. Magic. The power of it takes Harry's breath away a little every time.

Malfoy promptly goes back to pruning and cooing over his miniature oak tree in its miniature pot. 

His cat and his oak tree. And occasionally Harry. That’s the extent of Malfoy’s social life, unless he secretly frolics naked with the dark creatures in the haunted wood.

He only lets the silence hang for as long as it takes him to shut the door and cross the room. “Will you be lonely up here during Yuletide?”

“No. I don’t celebrate.” 

But Harry knows the fruit cake he had last time is specifically a holiday recipe.

“Why don’t you come celebrate with the village?”

Malfoy squints up at him, brows drawn together, like that’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. “Have you hit your head?”

“You could.”

Malfoy places his small pruning knife -- the one with the charmed jade handle Harry bought for him in the south on one of his longer trips -- on his work bench precisely. Two sharp taps.

“I’ve never been invited.”

“I’m asking you,” Harry says, sincere and hopeful.

People don’t notice them there at first.

It’s already dark when Harry practically pulls Malfoy out from behind the last row of houses and down the dirt road to the traditional pasture. With the hood up on his shiny blue cloak to disguise his bright hair, Malfoy could be anyone at Harry’s side.

Malfoy far outclasses him with his shining buckles and luxurious fabrics and elaborate gold-threaded stitches painting a sun across his chest where his robes draw together. 

Hermione, bless her heart, comes up to them first and welcomes them. A hush falls across the people closest to them when Malfoy introduces himself. It strikes Harry that it’s the first time he’s heard him say his first name. Draco. Although Harry already knew it from gossip and history books before they met.

The lull lasts long enough to be intensely awkward, but then Ron and Neville appear. And bless them too, because Harry hadn’t really told them what was going on but they take everything in stride. Neville goes so far as offering wine around before his courage fails him and he scampers away to help his mother with the food. 

And nothing bad happens. People scowl and ignore them and are generally unfestively, passively hostile. But they aren’t chased from the village with pitchforks or fire. Neville’s encouraged the grand, old oak at the centre of the pasture back to full greenery with his nature affinity and they take shelter under that from the bonfire smoke and wary eyes. 

The children have a snowball fight which they watch with their warmed wine. At some point, they migrate to one of the logs bordering the bonfire when it’s empty so Draco can read next year’s fortunes in the stars for him. Apparently the village will be prosperous and Harry will only sustain one slight injury from his work -- but it will improve his character, whatever that means, so it will be worthwhile. Or so Draco says.

He stumbles away for a minute to help Mrs. Longbottom bring out a new pot of her rosemary and spice-moss soup (famed for its smooth texture and deep flavours), and when he returns little five year old Dennis Creevey has attached himself to Malfoy's leg. His mother, sheltering under a fur tree out of the flimsy, fresh sleet with her fingers over her pale lips, looks about as terrified as Malfoy. But all Harry feels is happiness.

There will be lots of people -- especially the older people whose parents told them stories, in the dark haunted evenings, of chldhoods spent starving and praying their parents would return from battlefields -- who will never accept Malfoy. But there are others that Harry thinks he can persuade: people who are young enough at the moment to know him as a person before they learn their history; people who hold their parents' warnings as gospel and become prejudiced because of it; and people who have heard sinister tales of blood magic and sacrifice about the Malfoy family specifically but have never met this particular Malfoy at all.

One day, maybe Malfoy will be able to come here as his own person rather than as a guest. 

But Harry hopes, quietly, that he won’t want to come alone.


End file.
